Why are tests important?
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Kagome has to go back to modern Japan and Inuyasha's mad again about that because they're so close to Naraku. But is he really mad just over that...or is something much deeper that he can't tell her?


Disclaimer: Takahashi Rumiko-sama owns Inuyasha.  
  
Why are tests important?  
  
by miyamoto yui  
  
"OSUWARI!"  
  
BOOM!  
  
Kagome sighed as she almost stomped out of Lady Kaede's dwelling with a bow towards her while holding the door curtain up. Kaede just lifted her hand slightly and waved at Kagome while her eyes diverted themselves toward Inuyasha.  
  
The flat Inuyasha.  
  
He was pouting as he looked at Kagome with angry eyes. "I still don't understand what's important about those tests!"  
  
Kagome popped an invisible vein, closed her eyes and said with a mad tone, "How many times do I have to explain this to you?! HMPH!"  
  
With that, she pushed the curtain and left with a huff while Inuyasha tried his best to get up with a slight backache. He was already used to at least one 'osuwari', but it still didn't erase the pain on his lower back.   
  
He had been wearing the beads for such a long time, but he looked at them and sighed while mumbling to himself, "Damn beads…"  
  
Kaede lazily attended to her porridge while stirring it with a spoon. "You still haven't learned."  
  
"…" Inuyasha just folded his arms and left Kaede with her breakfast while trailing Kagome's scent quietly. It wasn't as if he didn't know where she was going, but the scent still made his heart skip.  
  
She smelled like Kikyou and yet as herself.  
  
It was something intoxicating in itself, but he could never admit it to her.  
  
Earlier, he had thoughtlessly said, "How can you think of tests while we're so close to Naraku's?"  
  
She closed her eyes in slight annoyance at his dense attitude towards her own duties towards her own time and place. "Why don't you understand?" Kagome had wanted to say, but decided against it.  
  
Instead, her frustration and hurt went into shouting those six letters that made him submissive involuntarily.  
  
As she was about to enter the well, she looked around her and sighed. "Inuyasha…"  
  
Then, she jumped in while Inuyasha watched her quietly from a tree, unable to stop her.  
  
The defiant look he had on was gone and he began to become silently worried. That stupid feeling and pettiness inside of him kept on insisting, "Those tests are much more important than you, Inuyasha."  
  
He stepped away from the tree as he walked towards the well to look in, knowing she wasn't there anymore. That blackness that held the constraints and boundaries of time.  
  
The only link to her world.  
  
"And someday, she too will leave because she has to go back to her own world," the voice inside of him said. "She can't be with you forever."  
  
He began to have an angry expression on his face to hold in his frustration while he held onto the edges of the wooden well.   
  
That was his fear.  
  
The thing he could never tell Kagome whenever she went away from him.  
  
--  
  
When Kagome came back to her own time, she stood there for a moment to touch the walls, feeling their warmth. For a moment, she thought she felt Inuyasha's presence there, but then she shook her head. Smiling melancholically, she climbed out to greet her family a good morning.   
  
Taking a quick shower, she dressed up, grabbed a toast and told her family goodbye while running to school. She had more than enough time to walk to school, but she found herself running.  
  
"At least I'll be _there_," she thought happily to herself.  
  
It was strange though. Most teenagers would have loved to just be absent all the time, but she felt guilty about missing everything. She was living more in the Sengoku Jidai period than in her own time!  
  
But Inuyasha and the others were there, so it wasn't so bad…  
  
Before she left, she gave Shippou orders to give Inuyasha instant ramen so that he would temporarily be occupied. Shippou had stayed away from them because he was going to take a nap, tuning them out as soon as they were fighting.  
  
She shook her head. "I actually studied this time!" she said happily to herself.   
  
While everyone else was sleeping along the way, she was studying and getting up at the same time everyone did, with as much gusto as if she had slept a full good eight hours instead of four.   
  
It was only Inuyasha that peeked his eyes open to watch her as she studied her books by the fire that was lighting up her face. He had liked the way she looked whenever she looked so concentrated, like when she was releasing an arrow or the time she was attending to a sick Shippou as if she were his real mother.  
  
A fazed Kagome walked into the school entrance with Hojo coming up to her. He gave her a cream for muscle sores and the like when her grandfather sputtered something about arthritis or something to that extent.   
  
"Thank you," she politely answered with a sheepish grin as Hojo shook his head with a smile.   
  
"No problem," he told her while asking, "Do you want to go to a music concert with me tomorrow night?"  
  
As she was about to answer, she politely declined, using her grandfather's sad excuse for an explanation of her absence (again) by saying she had to rest. "Maybe next time?" she said just to be polite.  
  
"All right!" Hojo said with a smile as he waved to her goodbye while parking his bike inside the school.  
  
--  
  
"What?!" Kagome shouted inside of her head as she heard the teacher say, "We've postponed the test until Monday."  
  
"No, that can't be!" she said as she sighed while looking at the old teacher nod his head saying, "I hope this won't be a problem."  
  
Yes, it was going to be a problem! She had to go back to meet up with Sango and Miroku while Shippou and Inuyasha were still at Lady Kaede's.  
  
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the extra time, but she was so prepared and for it be done today!  
  
_Today_.  
  
While her friends thought her depressed face was due to her 'awful boyfriend', she shook her head while saying that she actually wanted the test that day. Her friends, except the nerd, said she was crazy.  
  
To cheer her up, they all went shopping. But in the end, even with all the cheerfulness, Kagome thanked her friends, but still went home a bit annoyed and sad.  
  
As she walked home with her eyes looking at the sidewalk while she held the straps of her backpack, she sighed. It was still running inside of her mind.  
  
"Inuyasha doesn't understand until now," she quietly told herself. "I need a future _here_."  
  
But then, she stopped walking as she looked at the sky above her.  
  
It was becoming early evening with the blue become darker as the minutes went by.  
  
"Yes, that's right. _Here_." She found these words somewhat strange. "My life is in this Tokyo, not in that Edo."  
  
A world where Inuyasha didn't exist except on the other side of a time well.  
  
Her heart began to ache.  
  
She thought Inuyasha was mad for keeping them back and she felt bad, thinking that he didn't care about what she thought was important. It was all right and dandy to finish things in his time, but what about her?  
  
Kagome didn't want to keep them back either, but the further they got to Naraku, she knew that her time was running out. There would be a time that she was going to say goodbye once everything was done.  
  
Could she face that after all of them had gone through?  
  
Especially with Inuyasha?  
  
Going from the youkai that wanted to kill her to the one that she had fallen in love with knowing that Kikyou was never far from his mind.  
  
And yes, Kikyou.  
  
The more they got to the 'last battle' of their journey, could she really handle that Kikyou was the one that Inuyasha would be with? She had long accepted that this was so, but it was hard to practice.  
  
She wanted him happy, but she didn't want to be hurt.  
  
Except, that was just the way she was.  
  
Strength was both a virtue and a liar.   
  
But she wanted him happy, so her doubts would soon be calmed. That was just how it was.  
  
Couldn't he understand that she was trying to bid for more time so that she could still enjoy their company?   
  
Sango's stories with Kohaku…  
  
Miroku's jokes with women…  
  
Shippou's happy face whenever he hugged her…  
  
Inuyasha's true smile.  
  
Inside of her, as much as she was strong, she was happy that there was someone who would protect her also. Someone who gave her enough room to grow, but to fall back onto too.  
  
Hojo wasn't like that. He was nice and took care of her, but it just wasn't the same.  
  
She liked the way Inuyasha surprised her, saying or doing something that she never expected.  
  
--  
  
After dinner, she took a long, relaxing bath. When she went into her room, she closed the door and took out her book. While she had time, she was going to study in this silence.  
  
So there she was studying with her pajamas on when she looked up from her book half an hour later because she found it too quiet. "Gosh, I can't understand myself. I didn't want noise and now that it's totally quiet, I can't really concentrate."  
  
She pushed her book aside and put her arms on the desk. Then, she leaned her head on her arms while thinking about how she was going to study, but also about the excuse for Inuyasha and the others. This wasn't good at all.  
  
"Monday…" she said to herself.  
  
"What about Monday?" a voice said and Kagome turned around with a surprised look as she saw Inuyasha at the window climbing inside.  
  
"My…" Then, she stopped as she saw the usual white flowing hair all black.  
  
No ears…  
  
"Was it that time already?" she thought to herself as she looked at him, still shocked that he was there.  
  
How time seemed to go so fast with Inuyasha, Shippou, Sango, and Miroku. But it was so long in her own time period.  
  
Inuyasha cleared his throat to say, "So, coming back tomorrow? I came to pick you up."  
  
Then, he looked at the ground like a little kid. "How was your test?"  
  
He was going to try this approach. The one that tried to understand why these tests seemed more important than him…  
  
Kagome pointed her chair towards him and shrugged her shoulders as he sat down on her bed with his arms folded. Looking at him, she said with a tired sigh, "They postponed the test."  
  
"What?!" Inuyasha immediately shouted as he saw the expression on her face become very different from what he usually saw. It was so different that that worry inside of him became wider while his face remained firm and arrogant.  
  
"They postponed the test for one reason or other." Kagome looked at him as she tried to smile. "But I get more time to study! Eh heh heh heh…"  
  
He didn't like that look of hers.   
  
Why did seem so off?!  
  
It was driving him nuts…  
  
Was she tired? Was she still mad at him?  
  
Why was there always something blocking his way from Kagome? The fact that she was going to go back someday? Yes. The fact that no matter how hard he tried, even in his dreams, he couldn't catch her.  
  
He was running and fighting, but it would lead to nothing. By the end of the dream, he would be alone, wouldn't he? Waking up only to see her face to make sure that it was only a dream.  
  
For now.  
  
But as she sat in front of him, he looked at her silently. Then, before he knew it, he wrapped her arms around her shoulders. He closed his eyes for a second.  
  
He thought, "She's real now."  
  
Kagome's eyes opened a bit in shock at the gesture. She wasn't unfamiliar with his suddenness, but she was totally surprised at his serious expression towards her. Even asking how the test had been when he always talked of test with a bitter tone, as if he were jealous of them.  
  
But at that moment, she closed her eyes to feel the warmth he was giving.  
  
Did he understand what she was going through?  
  
Was he finally going to understand?  
  
Of course not, because she didn't want him to know what was bleeding inside of her as she always smiled at him.  
  
"What's wrong with you today, Inuyasha?" she laughed as she kept her head on his shoulder. "Did that last 'osuwari' do something to your brain?"  
  
"Yes," he had wanted to say as he held her. "But do you feel anything whenever you leave me?"  
  
He would certainly not admit to anything. He just asked, "Kagome, what's so important about tests?"  
  
It was an innocent question.  
  
A question that made her cry when he asked her with a tone as if he were only a little boy.  
  
"For my future," would have been the proper response. That's what the educational system always told you. Good schooling, good college, and good job equaled to a good life in this Japan.  
  
"Because I need to find a way to live here." She gulped as the tears were falling on his red clothing. "In this time."  
  
It killed her to say that: In _this_ time.  
  
Inuyasha's eyes diverted themselves to the ground. Inside of his heart, he admitted, "That's what I was afraid of."   
  
It wasn't that he didn't understand. He didn't want to or else it would just tell him how much further away she was going away from him.  
  
He wasn't here to make her cry, though. That was something he never wanted to do. Ever.  
  
He was here to cheer her up.  
  
Make her forgive him, as it had always been.  
  
For now.  
  
"What are you crying for?" he scolded. "Where's all that genkiness you always store away?"  
  
She began to lift her head from his shoulder. Wiping her tears away, she began to laugh while looking away from him. But at that moment, he shook his head as he grabbed her shoulders.  
  
With a harsh voice, he commanded, "Stop doing that."   
  
He didn't like the way she looked.  
  
"What am I doing?" she said, shocked again by his sudden change in mood.  
  
"Stop trying to smile when I can see that you're depressed!" he shouted with a little more passion than he had wanted to show.   
  
Kagome blinked at him, not knowing what to say.  
  
"I wasn't that mad, for God's sake!" he told her as he looked into her eyes. "So don't feel bad or anything like that!"  
  
At that moment, she began to smile her familiar grin.   
  
It was her own fault for being depressed, but he went out of his way to come to her. Then, he even pushed his pride aside to make her feel better. He was always warped like that, and it was truly sweet.  
  
Shaking her head, she said, "Thanks."  
  
The worries ceased and lulled for a moment when she said that single word to him with the smile that he had come to believe in.  
  
The one that he had come to love as his good luck and confidence, even though she didn't know.  
  
Kagome then closed her eyes as she leaned her forehead on Inuyasha's shoulder. Now, it was he who looked at her in embarrassment with a slight blush.  
  
"Always…you always surprise me," she whispered with a smile.  
  
"If I didn't, wouldn't your life be pretty boring?" he proudly said in a joke.  
  
But it was true.  
  
He had made life so much more interesting, even though it was just as dangerous. But she never needed to worry about anything as long as she believed in herself, Inuyasha, Shippou, Sango, and Miroku.  
  
Another tear began to fall.  
  
"That's why I can't imagine life without you," she couldn't say to him.   
  
She nodded. "Yes, that right."  
  
Inuyasha smirked as he said, "Okay, I better let you study for that test on Monday."  
  
Inside, some part of his heart was snipped away as he said that.  
  
He was voluntarily going to let her go because she needed to be there.  
  
Which wasn't beside him.  
  
As he got up and was about to go out the window, Kagome tugged on his sleeve. He gave her a quizzical look as she kissed him on the cheek. He blushed as he saw her smile at him without anything to say.  
  
He gave her a thumbs up while he felt a little light-headed. "Good luck on the test, Kagome."  
  
"Thanks, Inuyasha," she said while looking at him.  
  
Then, he left as she went back to studying while he went through the well.  
  
While she was studying, she mumbled to herself, "You surprised me again…"  
  
And she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.  
  
As he ate the ramen that Shippou gave to him from Kagome, he sat on his favorite tree and looked up at the moon. He had so many mixed feelings that he had to sort out before Kagome came back. He didn't know how to feel at that moment.  
  
--  
  
The night she came back, everyone was asleep. Before she went to sleep, she went to visit him as he looked at the river flowing. His hair was white again and it fell all over the place.   
  
Quietly, she hugged him from behind.  
  
"Now, I understand why you were mad at me." Then she hugged him tighter.   
  
Softly, she whispered into his ear, "You'll never be alone, Inuyasha."  
  
"But did she that mean that about herself?" he thought while she was thinking, "You'll have Kikyou in the end and that's enough for me. As long as you're happy…"  
  
Why…  
  
Why did she always know what to do and say to him?  
  
How could he ever learn to part with her?  
  
He had lost Kikyou once, and he was going to Kagome too.  
  
But, to him, _She_ was 'home'.  
  
And if he ever lost her, where would he go?  
  
Would he wander and be alone all over again?  
  
Was he going to be confused all over again?  
  
Yes…  
  
But he knew Kagome held a place in his heart that couldn't be touched by anyone, even Kikyou herself.  
  
That's why he always let her go back in the end.  
  
She was prolonging the inevitable for him, knowing she was guaranteed to be back.  
  
Selfish as it may be…  
  
…Until the time that she wouldn't be able to.  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
Author's note: The ideas that pop up last minute are the ones I've found to be really fun and random! * winces * I made this because how can I umake Inuyasha without the cute Inuyasha?! ^^v (Go Kappei!) * thinks of Rin and Sesshomaru in 'Belonging Nowhere' *   
  
I know this is pretty mellow, but I wanted to delve into each character's psyche.  
  
(For those on iroirona, the number 3 choice with a hetero pairing? This is the fic for that poll.) 


End file.
